Apple's Mac mini - Tempting PC Users Everywhere
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 25, 2005 7:39 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
First Encounter with the mini
I'll get to the actual computer itself shortly, but there's one more little gem in the box that is absolutely worth mentioning. The Mac mini comes with a single video output, a DVI output. But, if you're familiar with the DVI spec, you'll know that the DVI connector can carry both digital and analog signals. So, with a very cheap adapter, you can get an analog VGA connector from a DVI port. Apple obviously supplies the aforementioned connector with the Mac mini, which does the same thing that any DVI-to-VGA adapter does.
The difference here is that Apple actually managed to package the first well-made DVI-to-VGA adapter; well made in the sense that it has two half-exposed thumb-wheels integrated into the casing of the adapter - making it easy to actually screw the adapter into place, something that isn't always true about most conventional DVI-to-VGA adapters. It's nothing huge, but a nice little addition.
Then there's the mini itself, extremely small and extremely simple. All that's on the front of the machine is a very small power LED and a slot-loading CD-RW or optional DVD-R drive.
The back of the mini sports a tiny power button and vents, as well as the following I/O connectors, in order from left to right: power, 10/100 Ethernet, modem jack, DVI, two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port and 1/8" headphone/line out.
The slight separation between the aluminum casing and the plastic portion of the Mac mini isn't normally there. The machine pictured here was only partially assembled after our dissection process detailed later.
The base of the mini is rubber, making sure that it doesn't scratch or slide on any surface on which it happens to be placed. Also around the base of the system are vents used for cooling. The entire system only uses a single fan, so Apple had to maximize airflow by keeping air flowing through the vents.
One way that Apple was able to decrease the size of the mini was by using an external power supply, an 85W one to be more specific. The power supply features no fan and is about as wide as the mini itself, but not nearly as tall. The fact that the entire mini runs off of a single 85W power supply is impressive. Remember, that's less power consumption than most high end Intel and AMD processors alone.
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elvisizer - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
also, someone needs to tall anand that you can get pictures out of iphoto via drag and drop, not just going to Share->Export.Saist - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Wanted to step in and comment that the Microsoft Office problem is also solved by a little application that you may or may not have heard of.It's called.
OPEN OFFICE.
http://www.openoffice.org
wilburpan - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
#44Not to mention the lack of a need to buy an antivirus subscription, which kicks in at $25/year for Norton's antivirus program. If you keep your Windows PC for 4 years, that's an extra $75 in software updates you'll need to buy.
shuttleboi - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
"The comparison above was very deliberately set up to focus on hardware alone, ignoring things like software differences and form factor differences. "Hello? The Mac Mini comes with over $100 worth of software. Where are you going to get a software suite on Wintel for $100? Kazaa?
edwardhchan - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
#25: I used a Kingston ValueRAM PC2700 1GB DIMM... Works like a charm. Just a note on using as a media server: Divx and MPEG4 playback is fine with VLC. DVD is good too, but the DVD player doesn't have a very good de-interlacing algorithm. My Mini is being watched on a 43" Samsung DLP at 1280x720. Beautiful display for the compy :)Eug - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Apple has just dropped pricing on some of the BTO options:BlueTooth/Airport Express combo now $99.
1 GB RAM now $325.
80 GB hard drive upgrade now $50.
And now the SuperDrive option is 8X. Cool. :)
pbrice68 - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Just a quick FYI:TextEdit does open MicroSoft Word documents. Obviously, it doesn't support all of Word's features, but it will open and display the text and try to maintain all of the formatting.
Although you went over a great deal in iPhoto, you really didn't mention it's built in slideshow features, professionally printed books, and the ability to purchase prints directly from the application. The books really need to be seen to appreciate them.
Doormat - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
#26: the mini takes a regular DIMM, not an SO-DIMM. 1GB PC2700 DIMM is under $200. Plus the putty knife you'll need to open and install it.And I was planning on getting one until I read that they had problems at 19x12. As someone who is going to hook this to a HDTV at 1920x1080, this is disappointing news. Maybe next years refresh with a 9600+ with 64MB framebuffer will do the trick.
barnett25 - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
First I want to say that I loved the article. With that out of the way I have to ask, when you said that Pages exports well to html, what were you smoking? I just recieved iWork yesterday, I bought it becuase Pages seemed like an easy way to make good looking webpages. I saw the family newsletter template and knew my mom would love to have a webpage based around that. But try saving just the template, with no editing, to html. You get a big mess. Pages was not ready to be shipped. It's export to .doc format is messed up with the supplied templates too, but I can understand that being due to Word's lack of refinment and features. I do like pages, but it seems to only be good if you are either printing, exporting to pdf, or simply saving as a pages file. For any other kind of exporting it's next to worthless. (By the way, if you go to Apple discussions you will see dozens of people with similar compaints to mine.)jasonsRX7 - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Apple today lowered some of the prices on the BTO Mac Minis at the Apple store.http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/01/25/lower.mac.m...